Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/125

Rh ," has passed through nine editions in English, and was translated into Italian and published in Florence in 1861. In the next year she was awarded by the Government a literary pension of £200, which was afterward increased to £300; and was made an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society, the second woman—Caroline Herschel being the first—on whom this honor was conferred. Her bust, by Chantrey, was placed, by a subscription of the Fellows, in the great hall of the Royal Society.

Mrs. Somerville's best-known work is her "Physical Geography," one of the earliest systematic treatises on that important subject, on which so much attention has since been bestowed, which was published in 1848. It has passed through several editions in England and the United States, has been translated into several foreign languages, and still holds a place as a first authority, even with experts, among the numerous learned works that have since been published on the subject. Of the publication of this book, Mrs. Somerville says: "I was preparing to print my 'Physical Geography' when 'Cosmos' appeared. I at once determined to put my manuscript in the fire, when Somerville said: 'Do not be rash; consult some of our friends—Herschel, for instance.' So I sent the MS. to Sir John Herschel, who advised me by all means to publish it." She afterward sent a copy of a later edition to Baron Humboldt, who wrote her a very kind letter, in return, in which he spoke of the book as "that fine work, that has charmed and instructed me since it appeared for the first time. To the great superiority you possess, and which has so nobly illustrated your name in the high regions of mathematical analysis, you add, madame, a variety of information in all parts of physics and descriptive natural history. After the 'Mechanism of the Heavens,' the philosophical 'Connection of the Physical Sciences' has been the object of my profound admiration.... The author of the rash 'Cosmos' should, more than any other one, salute the 'Physical Geography' of Mary Somerville. ... I do not know of a work on physical geography in any language that can compare with yours."

Her last work, "On Molecular and Microscopic Science," containing a summary of the most recent and abstruse investigations in that department, was published in 1869, when she was close upon her ninetieth year. This book was begun, she tells us in her "Recollections," about eight years before, when she was unoccupied, and felt the necessity of having something to do, desultory reading being insufficient to interest her; "and as I had always considered the section on chemistry the weakest part of the 'Connection of the Physical Sciences,' I resolved to write it anew. My daughters strongly opposed this, saying, 'Why not write a new book?' They were right; it would have been lost time; so I followed their advice, though it was a formidable undertaking at my age, considering that the general character of science had greatly changed." Instead of being discouraged by the